Even
by quietlefty
Summary: Jade comforts Cat. Cat comforts Jade. They were even. in some screwed up, coincidental way, Tori Vega had somehow stolen both of their boyfriends. M for language
1. Chapter 1

_November_

"Sometimes I look over at him, and I think to myself that I like him. And he does not. And why that is. I think it's because I ruined his relationship with his first love. But it's okay, because I see him every day and sometimes my heart is so quiet I don't hear it so I don't care anymore. You know? I just don't care because I don't feel anything."

"Um. Okay, well-

"But the problem is when I look down. Or close my eyes. Because if I do that my heartbeat is a bass drum that is pounding through my stupidity through my veins and it goes faster and faster and louder and I can't think about my homework because he's there, doing stuff. And I can't do my stuff anymore because all I want to do it go over there and kiss the brains out of him. And maybe if I do he'll like me because he'll be really stupid with no brains."

"Alright."

"Yes. But if I kissed the brains out of him he wouldn't feel real. And it wouldn't feel real. He'd just be a doll. And I like him better alive."

"I'm going to stop you there, Cat." Jade West exhales sharply, closing her eyes as if wanting nothing short of nice, sweet alcohol. "I know. Okay? Yes, he's a big stupid ass."

"Jade!" The small teenager jumps up, splashing her drink on the carpet. She giggles before trying to maintain her balance. "That's really mean! He's not a stupid…he's not a stupid butt!"

"Well, considering that you've been blathering endlessly about this stupid male that happens to be our best friend-well, your best friend-for…" Jade leans back from her bed, dark hair spilling over the edge. "Three hours. Three long, absolutely lovely hours that I have been totally listening to and not at all painting my toenails, I think it's a high time that you got out of my house. Now."

"But I'm not done-!"

"Get out."

"But you're my ride!"

"Walk." Jade swings herself off her dark bed, facing Cat. "Or run. Or skip. Fly. Whatever the hell that weird, bouncy dance you call moving is."

"But you made me drink all of those nice pink drinks!" Hiccuping slightly, Cat jumps onto the bed. Her red hair is spilling out from her ponytail and her flushed face reveals bright, shining eyes and the widest smile. She nestles into her best friend's side, giggling and talking about something Jade isn't listening to. Jade rolls her eyes. She remembers the endless renditions of "Popular", Cat prancing around her, threading dandelions into each others hair.

"Hold still, moron." As they lay there on her bed, Jade reaches over and gathers her drunken friend's thick hair into her hands, smoothing out the tangles and carefully arranging a long braid. As if the act of braiding her hair calms her, Cat stops talking (for once) and lies there, quiet. Jade sees her ribcage rise and fall slowly. Her fingers run over the loose strands from Cat's braid. "Aren't you going to cut your hair?"

Cat flips over and faces Jade, giggling. "Maybe. Or I might grow it out and become Sasquatch." She snorts with laughter, bending in half as her nose crinkles and her eyes close and her mouth twitches. The sun rays coming in from Jade's open window shines on Cat, illuminating her skin and hair, turning her face into spots of shining light, dark eyes glittering and bright red hair flashing.

Jade's eyes soften. "You stupid moron," she murmurs, twirling the thick red braid with her fingers. "Go to sleep."

Cat wakes up before Jade, which was a first.

She doesn't know where she is upon waking up, but gradually she makes out Jade West's still form beside her, back turned and breathing steadily. She stares up at the ceiling for a while, feeling oddly lightheaded and yet heavy, heavy, heavy.

Oh.

She looks at Jade again. Jade hated being woken up early. One time Tori had tried to wake her up with a breakfast in bed and ended up having to cut her hair from the amount of maple syrup Jade had managed to pour onto the poor girl's head.

She could wait.

Cat turns back to the ceiling, staring at the sun's bright lines across the pale surface. Raising a hand, she traces invisible loops into the air, hearts, circles, lines, letters.

It's only a few quiet minutes before Jade turns around, green eyes half closed. She and Cat stare at each other for a second before Jade notices the redness around Cat's eyes and the wetness running down her cheeks.

"Cat…" Jade puts her arms around her smaller friend, feeling her shaking body heave up and down, her head nestled into Jade's pale neck, small hands wrapped tightly around Jade's warm waist.

"I…I…" Cat doesn't know what to say. She wants to say what she's been thinking about endlessly, feeling the word thrum through her breathing, underneath her living, threaded through her veins. But she can't, because if she speaks then she can't deny the words, she'd just become the words whispering underneath her life, a stupid pathetic little girl, a stupid, stupid, stupid girl.

"It's okay." Jade's voice breaks a tiny bit, words catching in her throat, their sharpness waking her from the fuzziness, the alcohol on her tongue, burning down her throat last night. She feels Cat's tears drip onto her neck, steady and wet.

"You'll be okay," Jade continues, trying not to cry. Her throat feels full and the words that want to float up take the heat from her heart, leaving her feeling empty, helpless, stupid. "You'll be okay."

"He's an..." Cat's voice falters, but she lifts her head from Jade's neck. They stare at one another, Jade focusing in on Cat's lopsided braid.

"Ass." Jade finishes, looking down. "He's an ass."

Cat smiles.

Jade feels horrible for thinking that Andre Harris was right in shattering Cat Valentine's heart into a million pieces, but when she looks into Cat's smiling eyes, she doesn't try to deny it.

_April_

When Jade sees Beck kiss another girl in the hallway for the first time, she purses her lips and turns her head. She decides to focus in on Cat's high, excited voice talking about God-knows-what, and she puts her hand on her chest and literally feels her heart pound fainter and fainter and when she can't feel it she decides she's not alive.

Even Cat, the innocent, childish girl that she was, subtly reroutes Jade around the water fountain and through the crowds to avoid the hot spot, the burning coal, lava spitting, heart tearing spot because when Jade whimpers for the first time talking to you, you listen. And Cat had listened.

Jade focuses on her shoes and the shining floor and the feel of linking arms with Cat and walks, walks, walks, walks. She can't feel her legs. She feels like she's unraveling. She can't look up and see him and her. Him.

Beck.

She looks over at Cat's animated face, looks down to see Cat's hands clasped around hers, she looks at all the other students laughing and whining and screaming and cursing with their whole hearts and their open mouths and she's invisible, isn't she? She's invisible.

She's a ghost.

But she looks down at Cat's hands and gives them a squeeze and she feels Cat squeeze them back and she realizes she still has to move, put one foot in front of the other, breathe, eat, breath, move, breathe. She is still stuck in the pits of the Earth and the spotlight of living and she cannot get out. She cannot.

They pass Beck.

And Tori.

Jade knows she shouldn't look.

She looks.

She first focuses on their hands. Tori's hands are clasped around his neck and Beck's hands are cupping her face, and she sees his thumb stroke her tan cheek and she supposes that she, the ex-girlfriend, should break down crying or even feel numb, maybe, but she just looks.

Tori's slender legs are leaning into his lean legs, her waist against his waist, their heads so close together Jade only sees them as shadows and light, beautiful and wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Wrong.

"Jade." she hears Cat whisper and she feels Cat's steady gaze on her face but she can't look. She doesn't want to see the pity that allows her to still be broken, still be stupid and hurting and disgustingly weak. She just closes her eyes tightly and can't help feeling like she's somehow folding inside herself. Or she's inwardly bleeding because of her broken heart or some stupid teenage angsty shit like that. She knows that there are things more important than Beck like maybe her grades or school or college or her bright future but when she tells herself that she feels like jumping off a cliff and never working again.

She wants to go home and sleep.

Cat has somehow led her into Seikowitz's room. No one is inside yet, since they have a fifteen minute drop into their usual seats, and for a while it's silent.

Jade thinks about killing herself.

Not now or here, that wouldn't make sense and janitors would have to clean it up and it's weird. And she would be known as that girl who just couldn't take it.

But she realizes that she wants to kill herself whenever she realizes that she's alone. Not a friendless alone, not a loser alone, but the scary feeling of isolation, the feeling of waking up in the middle of the night realizing that no one really knows you and you have to make your own life decisions and you are alone deciding where to go and what to do and what is the point of being on this earth when you are so stupid and you fail tests and all you do is eat and eat and get fat and the only love you had in your life ditched you for a bitch?

"Jade." Cat's whispering into her ear, she's so close that Jade can feel her breathe against her ear. "Are you okay?"

Jade almost laughs. Almost. "What do you think?"

"Hold still."

Cat runs her fingers through Jade's hair, untangling the knots, smoothing out the dyed black locks. "Aren't you going to cut your hair?"

It's so heartbreakingly familiar that Jade tilts her head back, surveying Cat. "Maybe. You didn't cut your hair either."

Cat smiles sadly, and Jade feels a small pang of guilt. "I might get bangs," she suggests nonchalantly. "But I'm already goth and emo, so I can't exactly make a statement."

"Well, I wore sweats for a month," Cat says. "And stopped baking cupcakes."

"Thank God," Jade laughs, still looking into Cat's dark eyes. "I couldn't fit into my pants anymore."

They're laughing for a few blithe seconds before the heaviness settles in. Jade feels like she's sinking, sinking, sinking down somewhere scary, but with Cat's fingers effortlessly braiding her hair, she tries to stay calm. "Hey." Her voice is shaking slightly.

"What?" Cat asks, not looking at Jade anymore but focused on braiding Jade's dark hair.

"I..." What can she say? Now they're even, in some weird, sad, screwed up and totally coincidental way."I...I...just..."

"Tori's an ass, isn't she?" Cat finishes, tying off Jade's braid. Jade reaches back to feel her braid, and Cat lets out a shaky breath. "Stealing our boyfriends. She is an ass."

"Yeah." Jade replies shortly.

The bell rings and everyone seems to flood inside the classroom, talking and laughing and Jade feels less invisible, there with Cat.


	2. Chapter 2

_August, Senior Year_

6:25 AM

_Beep. _

_Beep. _

_Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep-_

"Fuck. This." Jade's sharp voice breaks through the endless screeching of Cat's unnaturally neon alarm clock. "_Fuck_. No. I'm not doing this shit again, Valentine."

_-beepbeepbeepbeepbeep-_

Jade West's hand slams down upon the plastic clock, abruptly silencing the bastardly contraption. She glares at the pink blanket-covered lump beside her, wondering how anyone could sleep in such a God forsaken pink, high pitched alarm clock ridden room.

"Wake the fuck up."

Cat Valentine mumbles hazily, words muffled through her thick comforter. She was having such a _nice _dream. Something about…about…hands…or hams…?

Jade's hand clamps down on her shoulder. "Valentine. I wake up, you wake up."

"Alright, I'll be down in a second," Cat sings drowsily, unwilling to relinquish the fuzzy heart shaped spots dancing underneath her eyelids. "I'll…make us pancakes, Westicles." She snuggles further into the warm cocoon of cotton candy and freshly made shortcakes and bacon wizards holding chocolate staffs-

Jade narrows her eyes, pursed lips ready to fling the many, many words Cat had blacklisted from their friendship. _Fuck. Fuck first days of school and fuck this and fuck me, and fuck her, and fuck that Goddamned nickname Westicles_. She looks down at the small figure curled up against her and wonders _why _she agrees to sleepover as often as she does. It's been a year, hasn't it? At least. Cat should be over it by now.

Jade closes her eyes, and falls back into the downy pink softness. _She _should've been over it as well.

Five more minutes, maybe.

* * *

><p>8:00 AM<p>

The halls of Hollywood Arts were filled with laughing people.

Too many laughing people.

Too many fucking laughing fuckers, fuck fuck fuck-

Jade West storms through the front door, her dark hair swishing around her. Ideally, she had hoped for the cinematic silence, the priceless kind where everyone turns simultaneously, faces filled with fear and despair and more importantly, respect.

The most she receives is Robbie yelping.

Fuckers.

"Jade! How have you been? You know, you never responded to any of my texts." Robbie Shapiro adjusts his square lenses, smiling widely. Jade notes with annoyance his lanky height, towering a couple inches above her, as well as his (and Rex's) strangely tanned face. She tilts her head up. Shit. At least she has a lead on Cat.

"I did respond," she replies disdainfully, walking towards their lockers.

Robbie grimaces. "Thirty STD ridden penises do not count," he counters, following her with his quick gait, dodging wide eyed freshmen. "But since I am a very generous person, I'll pretend you asked me about the Bahamas, which was quite a sensational trip, by the way-"

"So that's where you got your fake tan? You know you can always borrow my bronzer." She opens her locker, pleased to find her scissors hanging neatly on their hooks, gleaming from freshman Mike's last polish. There are multiple benefits in blackmailing Cat's past suitors, she's found out. Ignoring Robbie's indignant rebuttals, she slides down onto the hallway floor, leaning against his locker. "Cat here yet?"

Robbie sighs, nudging her aside. "Yeah, she's been in the janitor's closet for a little bit. I thought you two would come together, what with your annual "back-to-school sleepover". Which I'm never invited to." He pouts, fingers fumbling on his combination lock.

Jade observes his futile attempts on his locker. "Yeah, we didn't do it this year. It gets tiring always dealing with little Miss High As A Kite at 3 AM."

Robbie glances at Jade before prying open his locker. "Weird, you guys have always done it." He pulls out a stained hoodie, followed with a questionable coffee mug rolling onto the hallway floor. They both wince as the overwhelming scent of AXE washes over them.

"Shit, Puppet Pussy! Less is more, less is more," yells a passing basketball player. Jade stares coldly at him. "We have a basketball team? At Hollywood Arts?"

"Apparently." Robbie pinches his nose. "But that doesn't change the subject. You guys didn't do your sleepover? Isn't that like, a tradition?" He glances inquiringly at her, looking away when she glares.

"Well, not this year. You have a problem with that, pervert?"

Jade closes her eyes, savoring the silence that follows. She inhales the familiar shitty smell of Hollywood Arts, a mixture of Robbie's AXE, sweat, paint, and the God-awful scent of desperate students trying to get decent grades at a school glamourizing drama and self-entitled shitheads doing whatever they felt like doing. Robbie sighs, sitting down beside her. She knows what's coming.

"I'm worried, okay? Last year was…" He looks at Jade's pale face, downturned lips, dark hair loose around her shoulders. Her left eyebrow always rises higher than the right when she's annoyed, he thinks.

"Yeah." She exhales. "I'm going to find Cat now."

* * *

><p><em>The Janitor's Closet, Also Known As Caterina Valentine's Second or Third Home <em>

8:15 AM

"Cat?" Jade steps over a 'Wet Floor' sign, narrowly dodging the janitor's cleaning bucket. "Hey, Cat? We should head over to Sikowitz's."

Cat Valentine cranes her head from the rickety metal balcony. "Jade, I have a plan."

Jade blinks. "For what?" She begins slowly, remembering their sophomore year 'Glitterama Sauna'. "The principal banned glitter from the school grounds for a reason."

"No, silly. For revenge!" The red-head grins broadly, swinging her short legs to and fro. From up there, Cat Valentine almost looks like an angel, lit from above by the flickering fluorescent lights, bright eyes wide and happy. "I know how to get Andre back! And maybe Becky for you, if you'd like."

Cat watches Jade's eyes widen slightly at the mention of Beck.

"What…uh, what exactly is this plan, Cat?"

Cat laughs, a high, bubbly sound. She swings her body around and maneuvers down the metal ladder. "We're going to ruin Tori's life. Hopefully." She adds, tilting her head thoughtfully. "I haven't worked out the schematics yet." Cat touches Jade's nose lightly, giggling. "C'mon, let's get to Sikowitz's!"

* * *

><p>Hey. So uh, it's been over a year, right? I'm so sorry. Alright, a little background information for this story. Chapter 1 takes place junior year, and this chapter is (obviously) their senior year. I wrote the first chapter when I was dealing with a bad case of delusion and bitterness and a lot of pent up anger, and while I really want to continue this story, I'm not sure if I can write the same way. This may be lighter than expected. If you have any thoughts on where this should go, please tell me because I am legitimately bullshitting through most of this. I have a semblance of a plot, but merely a semblance. Send me your ideas! Tell me your opinion on this! I'm sorry for not updating for an entire year! Send me some nicknames you have for these characters!<p>

Thank you for reading! Please read this note thoroughly.


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